The Stoxx Europe 600 Index increased less than 0.1 percent
to 276.24 at the close, having earlier climbed as much as 0.4
percent. The gauge has rallied 18 percent from this year’s low
on June 4, boosted by central-bank measures to support growth.
The Reserve Bank of Australia today cut its benchmark interest
rate for the sixth time in 14 months.

“We still anticipate a deal will be done to avoid the
cliff,” Daniel Morris, global market strategist at JPMorgan
Asset Management in London, said on Bloomberg Television. “We
may go a bit over the fiscal cliff and scramble back up again
but ultimately the impact, especially on the real economy, will
not be significant. If you see equities sell off because of
worries about the cliff, you should see that as a buying
opportunity.”

National benchmark indexes gained in 11 of the 18 western
European markets. France’s CAC 40 advanced 0.4 percent, while
Germany’s DAX and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 closed little changed.

Budget Talks

President Barack Obama’s administration rejected a
Republican plan for tackling the fiscal cliff as it didn’t
include higher tax rates for top-earning Americans, something
the president has called essential. House Speaker John Boehner
proposed $1.4 trillion in spending cuts and $800 billion in new
revenue by limiting tax breaks and capping deductions.

With the Republican blueprint, both parties now have their
opening offers on the table. Obama’s proposed framework calls
for $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $350 billion in cuts in
health programs, $250 billion from other programs and $800
billion in assumed savings from the wind-down of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, according to administration officials.

Boehner’s proposal to generate new revenue “will destroy
American jobs” and Republicans should oppose it, Senator Jim
DeMint of South Carolina, co-founder of the Senate’s anti-tax Tea Party caucus, said today.

Finance chiefs from the European Union’s 27 nations met in
Brussels today to discuss setting up a common bank supervisor as
part of a wider crisis-fighting plan. French Finance Minister
Pierre Moscovici told reporters yesterday he is “confident”
Greece will pull off a successful bond buyback.

Greek Debt

European governments are counting on the buyback as a
market-based way of cutting Greece’s debt, paving the way for
continued aid payments. Finance ministers set a Dec. 13 meeting
to release the next 34.4 billion euros for Greece.

Alcatel-Lucent added 2.6 percent to 88.3 euro cents after
people familiar with the talks said the French phone-equipment
maker is closer to obtaining financing from at least three banks
as it attempts a turnaround.

TUI Travel climbed 3.4 percent to 278.1 pence after the
tour operator reported full-year underlying pretax profit of 390
million pounds ($626 million), beating the average analyst
estimate of 357.9 million pounds, according to Bloomberg data.
The company also increased its final dividend by 4 percent.

United Internet

United Internet retreated 8.3 percent to 15.90 euros, the
biggest drop in more than two years, as UBS AG placed 11.9
million shares in the German phone company on behalf of Warburg
Pincus, the third-largest shareholder. UBS offered the stake at
16 euros to 16.50 euros apiece, according to terms of the deal
obtained by Bloomberg News.

Electricite de France SA declined 2.3 percent to 13.97
euros after the biggest nuclear-reactor operator raised the cost
estimate of developing the EPR plant in Normandy by 42 percent
to 8.5 billion euros.

Neopost SA lost 5.7 percent to 38.23 euros after the French
supplier of mail-room equipment lowered its annual sales-growth
forecast to about 2 percent. That compares to a previous
estimate of 2 percent to 4 percent. The company also cut its
operating margin forecast to “slightly under 25 percent” from
25.5 percent.